South Korean biopharmaceutical giant Celltrion Inc. on Monday announced a 100 billion-won ($83.3 million) share buyback plan to stabilize stock prices and increase its shareholders' value. Its affiliate, Celltrion Healthcare, which handles overseas business operations, will also repurchase 50 billion won of its shares. The buyback plans are scheduled to start Jan. 11 and run until April 10, the...

Ryu Young-joon to remain Kakao Pay CEO despite withdrawal as Kakao CEO appointee

South Korea consumers were found to be more satisfied with local goods and services on average last year than their peers in the US, Japan and Singapore, according to the National Consumer Satisfaction Index annually published by the Korea Productivity Center. The index -- an indicator of not only user satisfaction but economic performance of companies, government agencies and the macroeconomy a...

KT Corp., a major South Korean mobile carrier, said Monday its internet protocol television (IPTV) services were disrupted for nearly an hour, just three months after the company suffered a major network outage. The company's Olleh TV services were interrupted from 10:42 p.m. to 11:40 p.m. on Sunday due to a technical glitch in the power supply device of the signal distributor, according to KT a...

LG Electronics said Monday it has joined the IBM Quantum Network as a member to further explore its applications for quantum computing required in the field of artificial intelligence, connected cars, internet of things and robotics. LG Electronics, an electronics arm of South Korea‘s fourth-largest conglomerate, was the latest to take part in the alliance of over 170 entities. Those taking part...

Samsung Display, the display panel maker arm of Samsung Electronics, said Monday its latest quantum-dot organic light emitting diode display technology was certified by evaluation services provider SGS. The QD-OLED, touted as the technology to support next-generation TV picture quality, had received three certifications for True Color Tones, Pure RGB Luminance and Ultrawide Viewing Angle upon pe...

Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering Co. (KSOE) said Monday it has received 1.33 trillion won ($1.1 billion) worth of ship orders. Korea Shipbuilding obtained three separate orders from shippers in Europe and Latin America to build four 16,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) container carriers, four 2,500-TEU container ships and one liquefied natural gas carrier, the company said in a sta...

SK Geocentric Co., a chemical materials unit of South Korean conglomerate SK Group, said Monday it will build a plastic waste recycling factory in South Korea jointly with a U.S. startup as part of efforts to advance its green business. SK Geocentric said it signed an initial terms agreement with Purecycle Technologies Inc., a Florida-based plastic recycling company, to construct a polypropylene...

LX International Corp., the general trading arm of LX Group, said Monday 1,100 tons of urea will arrive in South Korea from China this week. The shipment -- the first batch from an import contract with China for 10,000 tons of urea -- will arrive in the southeastern port city of Busan on Tuesday, LX International said. In November, the trading company secured the amount in a move to help addres...

LAS VEGAS – SK Group’s three tech units, SK hynix, SK Telecom and SK Square, have teamed up to launch a new ICT technology development and investment body, called SK ICT Alliance. Their first project will be Sapeon Inc. where the three firms will make co-investments in the US to target the burgeoning AI chip market, the group said. During a press conference held on the sidelines of the Consumer...

LAS VEGAS -- Software development is no longer a priority for only IT companies, but also for carmakers. “The car industry itself is transitioning from being manufacturing-based to digital-based, meaning that software is becoming important than ever. Hyundai Mobis is trying to combine the mechanical strength it has with software to provide a better service,” said Cheon Jae-seung, head of the Fun...

LAS VEGAS -- Seeking control of its own destiny, Hyundai Motor is making efforts to be self-reliant in automotive chips, its US chief told reporters at CES 2022 on Thursday. “Definitely, as one of the big OEMs, we cannot be dependent on external factors to try to have control of your own destiny, right? So all OEM groups are making efforts to be self-dependent. And this is not an exception for u...

Hyundai Motor Co. said it aims for half of its US vehicle sales to be environment friendly models by 2030 while planning to produce electric vehicles in the world's most important automobile market, a company executive has said. Jose Munoz, Hyundai's global chief operating officer, made the comments in an interview with a group of Korean reporters on Wednesday on the sidelines of the Consumer El...

CBM plans to build world’s largest cell and gene therapy manufacturing facility by 2025

Lotte Engineering & Construction Co. and Hyundai Engineering Co. said Sunday they have signed $2.39 billion deals to construct a giant petrochemical complex in Indonesia. Under separate deals with Lotte Chemical Corp., Lotte E&C and Hyundai Engineering will build the complex in Cilegon, a coastal industrial city about 90 kilometers northwest of Jakarta, by 2025. Lotte E&C's stake is $1.63 billi...